ARTHUR E. GOSHORN. One of the veteran newspaper editors of Iowa,
Arthur E. Goshorn, has been publisher of the Winterset News for more than four
decades, during which long period he has been a strong factor in the development
and growth of his community. From modest beginnings this newspaper has grown in
circulation and public favor into one of the leading country newspapers of the
state, and Mr. Goshorn has always conducted it along lines of permanent
constructiveness and moral, civic and educational advancement.
Mr. Goshorn is purely a product of the community in which he resides and
where he is held in such confidence. He was born at Winterset, September 18,
1858, and is a son of John S. and Hettie Jane (Stiffler) Goshorn. His
grandfather, Robert Goshorn, was a resident of Pennsylvania, from which state he
enlisted for service during the War of 1812. John S. Goshorn was born in
Pennsylvania; where he was married, and in 1852 moved to Morning Sun, Iowa,
where he engaged in teaching school. In 1855 he came to Winterset, where he
continued to be both a public and private school teacher, and eventually became
county superintendent of schools. In 1861 he enlisted in the Union army for
service during the war between the states, and upon the formation of Company F,
Fourth Iowa Infantry, was chosen as second lieutenant. He conducted himself
with great gallantry in the numerous engagements in which he took part, and was
promoted captain of Company E, Forty-seventh Iowa Infantry, with which he served
until the close of the war. At that time he returned to Winterset and resumed
teaching school, which vocation he followed for two years, following which he
was appointed adjuster of the Farmers Insurance Company of Cedar Rapids. In
1889 he moved to Hebron, Nebraska, where he became secretary of a fire insurance
company of Lincoln, and resided at Hebron until his death, when his body was
brought back to Winterset for interment. Mrs. Goshorn, who was also a native of
Pennsylvania, died in 1882, at the age of forty-eight years, and was buried at
Winterset.
Arthur E. Goshorn was given excellent educational advantages for his day, and
after graduating from the high school at Winterset entered the University of
Iowa, from which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1880, receiving
the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy. During the four years that he attended
that institution he was not only an excellent student, but was an athletic star
as well, being catcher for the university team for the entire period and still
being in possession of one of the few and oldest sweaters issued by that
institution to its athletes. Following his graduation Mr. Goshorn took up the
vocation of teaching at Winterset, where he became principal of the old South
Ward School, but in 1884 turned his attention to newspaper work and for four
years was the publisher of a newspaper at Pierce, Nebraska. In 1888 he again
returned to Winterset and took over the Winterset News, of which paper he is
still the owner, publisher and editor, and which now has one of the largest
circulations of any country newspaper in the state. During his forty-seven
years of newspaper life Mr. Goshorn has formed a wide acquaintance among
journalists, among whom he is asteemed for his ability, native courtesy and
general friendliness. He is a member of the Iowa State Editorial Association
and the National Editorial Association, a fellow of the Iowa Academy of Science
and a member of the Association for the advancement of Science. He is a member
of the Masonic Blue Lodge. Mr. Goshorn has always taken an intelligent and
active interest in public affairs, and may civic movements have been either
fathered or benefited by him.
While at the university Mr. Goshorn was an ardent student of geology, under
Dr. Samuel Calvin, collecting many fossils for him from the Missouri series
which are now included in the university's exhibit. Mr. Goshorn has always
retained his interest in geology and is the collector and owner of probably the
most complete collection in Iowa of fossils from the Missouri series. He was a
pioneer in state conservation work and was three years vice president of the
Iowa State Conservation Society. He is president of the Madison County chapter
of the Izaak Walton League. During Wilson's administration he was appointed
postmaster at Winterset and served almost nine years.
In 1883 Mr. Goshorn was united in marriage with Miss Kate Shriver, who was
born at Winterset and is a graduate of the local high school, and to this union
there have been born the following children: Mabel, Mrs. Horace Tate, of
Winterset; Robert C., one of the proprietors of the Jefferson City (Missouri)
Tribune-Post newspaper, and a veteran of the World war, in which he held a first
lieutenant's commission and was on detached duty, who married Lenore Rhyno and
has one daughter, Betty Jean; Katherine, the wife of John Wintrode,
a veteran of the World war, in which he held the rank of first sergeant, and now
resides at Saint Petersburg, Florida; and Martha J., a teacher in the public
schools of Jefferson City, Missouri, and a graduate of the high school at
Winterset. All four children attended their father's alma mater, Mrs. Wintrode
receiving her B. A. degree there in 1919. The first wife of Mr. Goshorn died in
1911, and in 1914 Mr. Goshorn was united in marriage with Miss Gertrude Rhodes,
of Grinnell, Iowa. They are the parents of one son, Arthur E., who is now a
student in the Winterset public schools. |